The common hill myna. Photo: Sonu Arora
- The first comprehensive bird survey – in which more than 70 birdwatchers participated – in Chhattisgarh’s Kanger Valley National Park has recorded more than 200 bird species.
- The park’s unique location – close to the Eastern Ghats, Himalayas and north-eastern tracts – means that it is a sort of a melting pot, home to fauna that are found in all these different biodiversity hotspots.
- As part of the project, ten youngsters from the local indigenous Dhurwa community or ‘myna mitras’ were employed by the forest department to track, monitor and protect the Bastar hill mynas.
Kochi: The first comprehensive bird survey in Chhattisgarh’s Kanger Valley National Park has recorded more than 200 bird species.
More than 70 birdwatchers from across India participated in the survey conducted between November 25 and 27 by the state forest department in collaboration with Bird Count India – a partnership of several organisations, universities and birding clubs and societies.
Also part of the survey were members of the forest department, and local myna mitras — youngsters from the indigenous Dhurwa community employed to track, monitor and protect the Bastar hill myna, a subspecies of hill myna endemic to the area.
First comprehensive bird survey
Kanger Valley National Park is located in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. According to Dhammshil Gamvir, director of the Park, the three-day bird survey was the first comprehensive survey conducted at the Park.
More than 70 birdwatchers from 11 states, and forest department personnel, participated in this survey, covering more than 50 trails in different habitats such as woodland, wetland, riparian forest and scrubland.
The survey revealed more than 200 bird species, including nine species of owls (such as the spot-bellied eagle-owl) and 11 species of woodpeckers.
Kanger Valley National Park’s unique location – close to the Eastern Ghats, Himalayas and north-eastern tracts – means that it is a sort of a melting pot, home to fauna that are found in all these different biodiversity hotspots: an unusual occurrence as far as bird distributions and overlaps go.
During the latest survey, for instance, birders spotted species that are known to be endemic to the Western Ghats, such as the Malabar Trogon and White-Bellied Woodpecker. Bird watchers have spotted these species in the Park before.
The Park is a really fascinating area (along with the northern Eastern Ghats) that has elements from both the Western Ghats and northeast India, Ashwin Viswanathan, a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation, Bengaluru, told The Wire.
“Species like the white-bellied woodpecker have isolated populations in the region, perhaps the last remnants of a distribution that extended through wet habitats of central India,” he said.
There is much scope for exploration, he added. For instance, there is a subspecies of the painted bush quail (the Blewitt’s bush quail), that has been lost for a very long time now that may still be present somewhere in the Kanger Valley, he said.
Surveys such as the recent bird survey could shed more light on such fauna, and also provide an opportunity to explore multiple habitats and sites within a landscape that are otherwise ignored in favour of what’s often perceived as the ‘best’ birding spots, he added.
In fact, a group of birdwatchers who participated in the survey visited Raipur in northern Chhattisgarh, and also sighted the Northern lapwing and pied wheatear, two species not recorded in the state before.
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‘Myna mitras’
Myna mitras, who participated in the survey, also found it useful.
“I am glad that I got a chance to participate and learn more about birds. I hope this kind of survey happens again,” said Kanger resident Raydhar Nag, a myna mitra.
The project to designate myna mitras in the Kanger Valley began in 2021, Gamvir told The Wire. The intent is to inculcate an interest in the Bastar hill myna, a subspecies of hill myna endemic to the area, in the local community so that threats such as hunting decrease, he said.
Hunting used to be a problem before, and the mynas used to be captured live for the illegal pet trade as they are coveted for their ability to mimic sounds including human voices, he said.
As part of the project, ten youngsters from the local indigenous Dhurwa community have been employed by the state forest department to track, monitor and protect the Bastar hill mynas. Over the weekends, ‘myna mitras’ will also take local school children on birdwatching trips to foster more interest in birds. Authorities also hope to geo-tag some hill mynas with microchips so as to further understand their movement patterns since some individuals cross over to nearby Odisha too, he said.
Tracking and monitoring the Bastar hill myna has made some of them notice the mynas as well as other birds.
Twenty-year-old Sukra Nag, for instance, has learnt that the mynas prefer resting in dead trees, and are afraid of crows and crested serpent eagles. He has been observing the mynas for a year-and-a-half now.
Nag, who belongs to the Dhurwa indigenous community in Bastar, is one of the ten ‘myna mitras’ that the state forest department has appointed in the Kanger Valley National Park.
“I can now identify more birds,” he said. “I am more interested in them, and why we need to conserve them. I did not understand why this was required before.”